A few months ago, while Capitals fans and myself eagerly awaited the announcement of the Canadian Olympic Team, we only wanted General Manager Steve Yzerman to say one name. We heard Crosby. We groaned. We heard Brodeur. We nodded. We saw baby pictures. We vomited.

We heard Dan Boyle and Drew Doughty. Then Duncan Keith and Scott Niedermayer. Next was Chris Pronger and Brent Seabrook. And then… the 7th and final defenseman… Shea Weber?

After all the days that have passed since, we here at RMNB have still struggled to understand how Canada’s Best Defenseman, Mike Green, was left off the roster. Even as recently as Friday Night during the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, I professed to Daniel that Mike Green’s Defensive Acumen was at worst an 8 out of 10 – but more realistically a 9. And I said “EASILY” too. This prompted Daniel to investigate my claims as he was quite suspicious. Below are Daniel’s findings. How has Mike Green stacked up against his fellow countrymen and the rest of the NHL this year? See for yourself below the jump. You might be surprised.

First off, I’d say that you can make a fairly strong argument that the Chicago Blackhawk’s Duncan Keith is actually Canada’s best defenseman overall – at least this season. Green’s a very strong second though.

Here’s a handy table of the defensemen on the Candadian Olympic hockey team, along with the Capital who was left off (stats courtesy of Behind The Net):

Defenseman

Relative +/-

OGVT

DGVT

GVT

Duncan Keith

+7.1

10.5

7.4

17.8

Chris Pronger

+19.9

7.5

6.3

13.7

Drew Doughty

+16.0

7.4

6.3

13.7

Brent Seabrook

+5.9

1.7

6.8

9.0

Shea Weber

+6.2

5.1

4.0

8.9

Scott Niedermayer

-13

4.0

0.7

4.8

Mike Green

+7.8

13.5

3.3

16.6

Relative plus-minus is plus-minus adjusted for his team so that a good player on a bad team isn’t penalized. OGVT is offensive goals versus threshold (“contributions to goals scored against the opposition” above what a replacement level player would have done – Puck Prospectus); DGVT is defensive goals versus threshold; and GVT is total goals versus threshold (which includes shootout GVT as well).

As you can see, Keith is actually ahead of Green by a little over 1 goal (as of 2/12), though they rank 1-2 amongst all defensemen in the NHL. Also, Niedermayer sort of sticks out like a sore thumb. He’s the Captain of the Canadian team though, and was therefore likely chosen for veteran leadership and other intangibles more than his current playing abilities. And that makes sense considering his long list of accomplishment includes the following: 2 Stanley Cups, the Conn Smyth Trophy as Playoff MVP in 2007 & a Gold Medal with Team Canada in the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.

The Candian defensemen (not counting the Captian) actually rank 1st-2nd (Green)-3rd-4th-13th and 14th in the whole NHL in GVT. It’s a very strong crew, with or without Mike Green. When the team was chosen and Mike Green was excluded, I heard that one of the potential reasons for it was that Canada was trying to build a strong defensive unit. Looking at the DGVTs, that does indeed appear to be the direction in which they went, as Green – while excellent overall – hasn’t necessarily been the strongest on the defensive end. In fact, ranking all NHL defensemen by DGVT, the Olympic crew is 1st-2nd-4th-5th and 27th, while Green is all the way down at number 47. Taking him over Shea Weber might have been a good call given the narrow difference in DGVT and large difference in OGVT though.

Here’s a graph of all NHL defensemen with at least 50 games played this season, ranked by DGVT:

Those green lines are (somewhat ironically) the top defensemen on the Canadian team (ie. not Niedermayer). The red line is Mike Green. He’s slightly above the average (which is 2.8 DGVT for this group) but not by a great deal.

Even just comparing Green to his fellow Capitals teammates, he doesn’t come out terrifically. He’s third behind Jeff Schultz (4.3) and Alex Ovechkin (3.4) in DGVT, and 6th in relative plus-minus. Additionally, Green is 13th (!) on the team – amongst players with at least 10 games – in Quality of Competition (which GVT apparently does not account for). Even facing lesser competition, he hasn’t been a stand-out defensively (though he’s still good there, and great overall).

I’ll finish by noting that I’m not the only one who doesn’t think all that highly of Green’s defense (from the pre-season projections at Puck Prospectus):

“The one hold up with Green is his sometimes spotty work in the defensive zone. This was especially evident in the playoffs against superior competition, so if Green works on his defensive game, he could become the top defenseman in the entire league.”

That comment was attached to a projection of 6.3 DGVT, whereas Green is currently on pace for just a 4.4 DGVT. I’m just saying…

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http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2010/02/13/how-does-canadas-best-defenseman-stack-up-defensively/feed/3Wednesday Webhits: The Frost King’s Links Of The Weekhttp://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2010/01/27/wednesday-webhits-the-frost-king%e2%80%99s-links-of-the-week-3/
http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2010/01/27/wednesday-webhits-the-frost-king%e2%80%99s-links-of-the-week-3/#commentsWed, 27 Jan 2010 18:00:28 +0000http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/?p=1237This week we’ve got a study on the age at which hockey players are at their peak (an important consideration when looking to sign a guy to a long-term contract), a look at what kind of conclusions you can draw from how a team does over various stretches of time, what it appears goalies are awarded three stars for, and a new stat based on plus-minus and Corsi.

I was meaning to do an age study using Goals Versus Threshold instead (and I still may, at some point), but PPG should be a pretty good proxy.

“For my sample, I looked at all NHL players born 1962-79 who played exclusively in the NHL, AHL or IHL from Age 21 to Age 29. I assumed that AHL and IHL points were worth 45% of an NHL point. The average points-per-game at each age came out as follows:

The peak age is just slightly more than 25. The peak age actually falls at approximately 25 for a wide range of NHL equivalencies for the minors. This is also roughly the same result as you get if you restrict your dataset solely to players with careers longer than 200 games and you look at the number of NHL games played at each age. Other methods don’t give substantially divergent results – even the most or least restrictive datasets result in peaks between age 24 and 26.”

“Looking at every season since the lockout gives us 120 completed seasons. In 36 of those seasons a team’s points percentage through 50 games predicted that same team’s points percentage over the last 32 games within a 5% range. So a team who won 60% of their points through the first 50 games would win between 55% and 65% of their points over the last 32 games about one third of the time. In the other 84 seasons a team’s point percentage changed by more than that +/- 5% range. About forty percent of the time (48 seasons) the change was greater than a range of +/- 10%. In other words, a team that earned 60% of their points through the first fifty games earned less than 50% or more than 70% through the last 32 games four times out of ten. That is a lot of variance…

So… what about the playoffs? I’m not sure what the conventional wisdom is right now. I think it’s fair to say that some folks believe being “hot” going into the playoffs is important and others think it makes no difference. The results from the last four years would seem to imply that a team’s performance in their last 32 games is more predictive than their performance through their first 50, despite the smaller sample of games. The following chart tells us how well standings points predicted the winner of a playoff series (a “tie” means the two teams had an equal points percentage):

Maybe that’s all just variance and the full season stats will come out ahead in the end but I’m not all that confident. The “Full Season” results performed the best relative to the “Last 32″ in the 2005-06 playoffs when all three methods took a bit of a kicking. Right now 32 games looks pretty good but it’s probably not the ideal breaking point. I wonder where that “sweet spot” is.”

Since goalie valuation is still difficult to do using statistics – and valuation using ones’ eyes can be quite faulty over a long period of time – looking at single game subjective opinions using star selections might be handy.

“For all goalies with at least 25 games played in 2009-10, I tallied up the total number of three star selections and divided that by games played to get a Star Selection Percentage. Here is the correlation between that statistic and the other traditional goalie stats (all of which are expressed as a per-game rate for the most accurate comparison):

The goalies that most often impressed the observers were not the ones who were most likely to be on the winning team or shut out the opposition. Instead, they were the goalies with the highest save percentages.”

“The main factors that affect shot quality (distance, rebounds, game situation, game score) are well known. Simply weight each shot by its expected chance of resulting in a goal, do the difference of for and against as in Corsi, and voila! Delta, the love-child of Corsi and plus-minus, is born.”

Delta is then adjusted for a zone-neutral environment and for quality of competition.

]]>http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2010/01/27/wednesday-webhits-the-frost-king%e2%80%99s-links-of-the-week-3/feed/0Wednesday Webhits: The Frost King’s Links Of The Weekhttp://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2010/01/20/wednesday-webhits-the-frost-king%e2%80%99s-links-of-the-week-2/
http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2010/01/20/wednesday-webhits-the-frost-king%e2%80%99s-links-of-the-week-2/#commentsWed, 20 Jan 2010 18:15:31 +0000http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/?p=989This week we’ve got a the guys who take the most punishment on the ice (hits), a better save percentage using an adjustment for the penalty kill (which puts a certain Caps’ goalie in pretty good company), the snipers who score goals more than one would expect, and a look at which Conference is stronger and what that means for who could end up in the Stanley Cup Finals.

“We all know who the big hitters are, but have you ever wondered who gets hit the most?”

Looking only at roads hits to remove some of the scoring bias, Stephane Robidas (191) and Douglas Murray (187) are the guys who have gotten hit the most over the last two years.

Recently departed Capital Michael Nylander is 6th in getting hit ratio, having dished out just 7 hits while taking 53 himself. No Caps were amongst the top 19 in hit ratio, with Trent Hunter leading the pack there (153 hits, 63 hits against).

With the high-powered offense, there isn’t a ton of need for Washington to be overly physical.

While save percentage may be one of the better stats for goalies, it still doesn’t take into account the quality of the shots faced. That issue can be ameliorated a bit by adjusting for how well and how often goalies face the penalty kill.

“As of now the top ten goalies in SV% with at least ten games played are:

Varly hasn’t done particularly well on the penalty kill (.844 SV%), so when making an adjustment for that he vaults up to virtually the top of the rankings. Now if he could spend more time on the ice, that would be fantastic.

Hawerchuk “estimated the expected number of goals that each player should have scored each year based on the locations of the shots he took – because rebounds are high-percentage shots… only looked at initial shots to assess pure shooting” and then compared to the actual number of goals scored. Ilya Kovalchuk was easily tops, having scored about 51 more goals than would be expected. The Capitals’ two Alexanders were 7th (Ovie, 27 more goals) and 12th (Semin, 19 more goals). Nice to have a couple of sharp-shooters like that on one’s team.

The Western Conference has been stronger than the Eastern Conference this year:

“Through last weekend, in head-to-head matchups between Eastern and Western teams this season, the West has won 70 in regulation and 16 more in overtime or shootouts, compared to the East’s marks of 47 wins in regulation and 17 in overtime. In those games, the West has outscored the East by a total of 44 goals and outshot them by 155 shots…

While the worst team in the NHL, the Carolina Hurricanes, has an address on the East Coast, even the better teams in the Eastern Conference have trouble with the top Western teams: of the 42 East-West games between the top eight teams from each Conference, the West has won 29, the East just 13.

This is not to say that the Eastern Conference is without elite teams. The New Jersey Devils may be the most complete team in the NHL, the Washington Capitals have the most explosive offense, the Buffalo Sabres have the best goaltender and the Pittsburgh Penguins are the defending Stanley Cup champions. But of the three teams that can lay claim to being at the head of the class at the halfway point of the season, two reside in the West, with the Chicago Blackhawks and San Jose Sharks joining New Jersey.”

Despite having to go through the tougher competition, the Blackhawks are still the team with the best odds to reach the Stanley Cup Finals.

“Ultimately, you have to beat the other conference’s top team to win the Cup and the two favorites both reside in the West. Both the Blackhawks and the Sharks would be favored in a head-to-head matchup with any Eastern team, while the Canucks (predicted to pass over the Avalanche in our projections) and Flames would be underdogs to the Devils and Capitals, but favorites against the Penguins or Sabres.”

(Almost) anything can happen in a short series, and being one of the top few contenders for the Cup is about as good as any team can reasonably expect.

]]>http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2010/01/20/wednesday-webhits-the-frost-king%e2%80%99s-links-of-the-week-2/feed/0Wednesday Webhits: The Frost King’s Links Of The Weekhttp://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2010/01/13/wednesday-webhits-the-frost-king%e2%80%99s-links-of-the-week/
http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2010/01/13/wednesday-webhits-the-frost-king%e2%80%99s-links-of-the-week/#commentsWed, 13 Jan 2010 23:22:25 +0000http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/?p=786This week we’ve got a great example of goalie analysis, the difference in salary a player can expect depending on whether he is a restricted or unrestricted free agent, what might explain the difference in predictability and parity between the NHL and other sports (namely, the NBA), and a nice profile of the Capitals.

One of the great things about the internet is that different people can make advancements in a field (like hockey analysis) that work together, build off each other, and provide new ideas and techniques that everyone can utilize. It’s a very cool phenomenon.

Chris Boyle compares Montreal Canadiens goalies Carey Price and Jaroslav Halak with some really great, in-depth analysis. He breaks down the quality of the goals each allowed into good, bad, and suspect. There are graphics for where in the net goals where scored, including some breakdowns of the circumstances of some of the goals (who, from where, type of shot, etc). There’s a look at save percentage on shots from various distances. Just fantastic work, all around.

Hawerchuk looks at the players signed last off-season and their projections for this season to get an idea of the going rate of a win.

For unrestricted free agents it was $2.23 M per projected win, and for restricted free agents it was $1.33 M per projected win.

The 40% discount rate jibes well with my intuition, since in Major League Baseball a player in his three arbitration years will get about an 60%-40%-20% discount off of full market value in successive years. That averages out to the same 40%.

I had been using $3 M per win as the going rate on the free agent market, so it’s good to have that figure updated.

Countering: “Generally, what sets the NHL apart from the far more predictable (and parity-free) NBA is the curious effect that team play and chemistry, coaching and camaraderie can have on results.”

With: “The more opportunities you give to the better team, the more likely skill will win out.

In the other post that I’ve linked, he did some math and concluded that, to have the same reliability in terms of knowing the strength of a given team, you’d need a 32 game schedule in the NBA, a 28 game schedule in the NFL, an 82 game schedule in the NHL and a 162 game schedule in MLB. This, I think, gives rise to an alternate theory to “team play, chemistry, coaching and camaraderie” – we (or those of us who care about basketball) know a lot more about an NBA team from the preceding season’s results than we do about an NHL team… I’m inclined to think that “team play and chemistry, coaching and camaraderie” is a euphemism for variance.”

And throws in an example from Tom Tango: “Suppose, for example, that a tennis match lasted only one set. That is, a set is a match. Would Federer win 88% (or whatever it is) of his matches? No, of course not. If he’s winning 88% of his matches because he’s winning 65% (or whatever it is) of his sets, then having a one-set match means he’d only win 65% of the time. Similarly, if you had 7-game or 9-game matches (spread say over two days) then he’d win 95% or 99% of his matches. He’d look unbeatable (except for when he plays Nadal).”

Yup. Intangibles are what you reference when you don’t have something else to reference to make your point. The NBA isn’t more predictable because of chemistry – it’s more predictable because of the inherent structure of the sport.

“While a compelling narrative could be made for the New Jersey Devils, a quick look at the divisional standings shouts hosannas to the Buffalo Sabres, I continue to hold on to the belief that the Washington Capitals are the strongest team in this year’s Eastern Conference…

Green has ten goals (4 on the power play) and 31 assists. Looking at the advanced numbers, he is currently 2nd in the league (behind only Duncan Keith of the ‘Hawks) in Tom Awad’s Goals-Versus-Threshold (GVT) statistic, comparing a player’s contributions to what would be expected from a non-prospect from the AHL at +11.8. His adjusted +/- is currently +8.2. One thing worth keeping in mind, however, is his Quality of Competition score, as tracked by behindthenet.ca. At 0.021, he is only 5th among Washington blue-liners, suggesting that Boudreau may be shielding him from the best their opponents have to offer, and leaving the heavy defensive lifting to Tom Poti, big Shaone Morrisonn and bigger Jeff Schultz. With a relative +/- of 11.4 (2nd on the team), 23-year-old Schultz, a former 1st rounder may be an unsung hero on the Washington blue-line. Among regular D-men, Schultz also leads the Caps in blocked shots per 60 minutes at 5.6 and has the highest Corsi Rating (measuring the difference in shots on goal for and against while a given player is on the ice), at 7.1 among Capital defenders…

Ovechkin plays with All-World line-mates, generally teaming up with compatriot Alex Semin on the other wing, sandwiching Nicklas Backstrom, possibly the most overshadowed player in the game today…

this depth, in the forward lines as well as the back-line, and the solid goaltending provided by Varlamov, will propel the Washington Capitals to the top of the Eastern Conference in May and to the Stanley Cup Finals.”

Nice.

Japers’ Rink

I also wanted to congratulate to Japers’ Rink on being ranked the top NHL Blog. I look forward to doing so in person next week.

]]>http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2010/01/13/wednesday-webhits-the-frost-king%e2%80%99s-links-of-the-week/feed/0Calder Trophy Contenders At The Half-Way Point Of The Seasonhttp://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2010/01/11/calder-trophy-contenders-at-the-half-way-point-of-the-season/
http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2010/01/11/calder-trophy-contenders-at-the-half-way-point-of-the-season/#commentsTue, 12 Jan 2010 02:01:28 +0000http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/?p=652

Semyon Varlamov is going to have to stop being injured, to actually contend for the Calder Trophy.

The Capitals’ Semyon Varlamov has been one of the better rookies in the NHL this season, and he’s certainly in the running to maybe take home the Calder Trophy. Several of the more highly touted rookies haven’t quite lived up to expectations, which leaves the field still wide open. By the nature of these kinds of awards, the winner tends to be the guy who played over his head the most and the longest. That means that the player who is on top now can easily regress and possibly even finish out of the top 10 at the en. Also, since it’s hard to compare players at different positions, the Goals Versus Threshold numbers that Behind The Net recently added are useful to put everyone on the same playing field. A little more than half-way through the season, here are some of the top contenders.

Jimmy Howard (G, Detroit Red Wings)

15-9 with a .927 save percentage and 1 shutout

Howard’s kind of come out of nowhere to take the starting job in Detroit. His GGVT has been +13.7, with another +0.7 on the shootout, for a total of 14.5 Goals Versus Threshold (rounding). The guy has a pretty good pedigree – he holds the NCAA records for GAA (1.19) and save percentage (.954) and he was named to the 2005–06 AHL All-Rookie team – but as a second-round pick from back in 2003, Howard certainly wasn’t someone people expected to be amongst the best rookies in the league this season. While it might be a little unlikely that Howard will be able to keep up this level of performance, if he is able to he might be rewarded with some hardware at the end of the year.

Tyler Myers (D, Buffalo Sabres)

6 goals, 20 assists, +8 plus/minus

The 2008 first-round pick and 2009 World Junior Gold Medal winner with team Canada has been equally good in both aspects of his game with a +3.4 Offensive GVT and a +3.4 Defensive GVT. With an additional +0.3 on the shootout, Myers’ +7.1 Goals Versus Threshold is top amongst all rookie skaters. If the goalies are dinged due to their position, then Myers is in excellent position to capitalize.

Semyon Varlamov (G, Washington Capitals)

12-1 with a .924 save percentage and 2 shutouts

Varly has missed some time, which has cut into his value. His Goalie Goals Versus Threshold is about +7.3 currently, and he’s been very good on the shootout at +2.7. His total GVT of 10 is a little lower than his ability might imply, but if he is able to stay on the ice for the majority of the second half he might be able to push that towards 25 for the season.

Niclas Bergfors (RW, New Jersey Devils)

13 goals, 14 assists, -3 plus/minus

Bergfors was drafted all the way back in 2005, but is getting his first real time in the NHL this year. He’s been good on offense with a +4.7 OGVT, but with a -4.8 relative plus/minus and a +0.8 DGVT his defense leaves a little to be desired. A +5.5 GVT is nothing to sneeze at though.

James van Riemsdyk (LW, Philadelphia Flyers)

10 goals, 16 assists, +5 plus/minus

Drafted second overall in 2007, JVR has done a good job scoring (+4.1 Offensive GVT) and defensively (+5.4 relative plus/minus, +1.3 DGVT), with a total Goals Versus Threshold of +5.4.

John Tavares (C, New York Islanders)

16 goals, 12 assists, -8 plus/minus

The first-overall pick from last year’s draft hasn’t been a dominant player yet. Despite the 28 points and the bad plus/minus, his Offensive GVT is just +2.8. His relative plus/minus is a much more mild -1.8, and his defensive GVT is in the positive territory at +1.0. Add in the -0.5 on shootouts, and Tavares’ 3.3 Goals Versus Threshold is only just OK – and probably a disappointment given the high expectations.

]]>http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2010/01/11/calder-trophy-contenders-at-the-half-way-point-of-the-season/feed/0Wednesday Webhits: The Frost King’s Best Links Of The Weekhttp://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2010/01/06/wednesday-webhits-the-frost-kings-best-links-of-the-week-3/
http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2010/01/06/wednesday-webhits-the-frost-kings-best-links-of-the-week-3/#commentsWed, 06 Jan 2010 23:40:20 +0000http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/?p=593This week there’s one link in particular that should lead to some debate; whether the Capitals would be better off signing Nicklas Backstrom to a long term contract instead of Alex Semin.

There’s also a bit on one Cap’s under-appreciated skill, which Olympic team has the highest paid players, how to go about building a team, and who the top fighters since the lockout are.

I should note that I don’t think fighting is a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but I do find it entertaining (when it’s done well).

“Hockey is a young man’s game, so there’s a big difference between signing a 21 year old Nicklas Backstrom and signing a 25 year old Alexander Semin. Take the top 20 skaters thus far this season by Goals Versus Threshold: their average age is only 25 years old while the oldest is Pavel Datsyuk at merely 30 years old. Signing Nicklas Backstrom (10.8 GVT, 12th in NHL) for multiple years during his peak makes more sense than signing injury-prone Alexander Semin (8.0 GVT, 29th in NHL) for multiple years at slightly past his peak. The Caps are set up for significant cap flexibility after next season: currently Alex Ovechkin and Mike Green are the only significant contracts on the books for 2011-12.”

Makes sense to me. Backstrom might not have Semin’s natural talent, but you’re not paying for perfect world hockey; you’re paying for actual expected production on the ice. And right now, it seems to me that Backstrom gives you more of it, especially relative to the price.

The main article talks about the decline of the Detroit Red Wings and how that relates to the quality of their front office. The comments sections is an interesting read on paying big money for goalies, managing contracts, etc.

“We’re about halfway through the season right now, and the distribution of corsi Sv% looks identical to what would be expected by chance alone. I.e. – in even a sample size of half a year, there’s no discernible “skill” amongst the population of NHL goaltenders.

If I were an NHL GM, there’s no [cough] way I’d spend any kind of money on goaltending. I’d trust my scouts to pick me out a couple guys who belong to the population, and I’d pay them as little as possible.

I can’t understand why one would bet big money on something in which there is so much uncertainty and randomness wrt true equity or “edge”. To boot, if the equity exists it takes so much time to realize, that most of the utility is lost.”

It’s an interesting question. Having a couple young decent goaltenders on the cheap sounds pretty nice though.

Former Capitals brawling aficionado Donald Brashear comes in as the fourth best fighter since the lockout, using the ELO rating system (like in chess) which looks at the quality of competition and not just wins/losses.

The Washington Capitals made a trade this week, picking up Jason Chimera from the Columbus Blue Jackets for Chris Clark and Milan Jurcina. Given that I spent all weekend putting together a spreadsheet trying to approximate the Goals Versus Threshold that Puck Prospectus uses to give an idea of a player’s contributions, I thought it would be a good time to put it to use. I wasn’t able to match their GVT exactly, but I got close enough to make the thing potentially viable.

First, on what GVT is:

“To explain in terms already familiar to sports statisticians, GVT is very similar to VORP in baseball: it is the value of a player, in goals, above what a replacement player would have contributed. The fact that GVT is measured in goals is crucial: statistics that divide up “Win Shares”, so that the ratings of a team’s players sum to that team’s number of wins, are very erratic and non-linear, since wins don’t increase or decrease linearly with team caliber. While hockey is ultimately about winning or losing, players’ contributions always come down to scoring goals and preventing them. A player cannot “win” a game, even though he may be put in a situation where scoring a goal or making a key save would create or conserve a win. Each player’s role, no matter his position, is to try and increase the goal differential in favor of his team. An offensive player who scores a hat trick only to see his teammates allow 4 goals against has nevertheless done his job; a goaltender who stops 39 of 40 shots only to lose 1-0 has likewise performed well. Using this standard, all players can be compared by the same yardstick: how much did they help (or harm) their team’s goal differential?…

GVT is measured in goals. This makes it a convenient unit that hockey fans are already comfortable with.

GVT compares hockey players of all positions and over any period of time.

GVT only uses statistics that lead directly to goals. You cannot incorporate goaltender wins into GVT, because they are not a measurement of goals prevented. However, if you can rationally explain what are the odds of a faceoff win (or loss) leading to a goal or goal against, it would be possible to incorporate faceoff wins and losses into GVT, though I have not done so.

GVT has built-in accounting. The sum of player GVTs on a team equals that team’s GVT plus the replacement level. This is essential, as player statistics often come with caveats. “Kovalchuk scored 43 goals, but he doesn’t play defense and his team isn’t good”. This makes it much easier to measure “how good would this team be replacing player A with player B?” It is also essential in that player success is correlated with team success, which after all is the entire point of the sport.

GVT automatically normalizes for the strength of the league…

GVT does not measure a player’s talent. The statistic measures a player’s contribution to his team’s goal differential. A goaltender that faces zero shots will have a value of zero, regardless of whether he is Patrick Roy or Andrew Raycroft. Likewise, a player that is injured or gets little ice time will see his GVT reduced accordingly. It also does not take into account environment: a player will score more with better linemates, and I make no attempt to adjust for that…

GVT does not measure intangibles. Things like leadership do exist in hockey, and they do help to make your teammates better. However, there is no way to measure this through statistics, and any attempt to quantify it is futile. In effect, we are not trying to see what information is “hidden” in the statistics; we are simply trying to better characterize the information that is at hand”

Not a top scorer by any means, but he’ll add a little bit and was projected by VUKOTA (Puck Prospectus’ projection system) to be at +1.4 OGVT for the season (in 60 games). Depending on who’s playing around him on the Capitals, his scoring may even go up.

Plus/Minus: -7
Defensive Goals Versus Threshold: -0.1

Had a +/- of +8 last year, and -5 the year before that. VUKOTA had him contributing more on defense than on offense with a +2 DGVT. Maybe dial that down a touch rate-wise, but as long as he’s playing more that might be accurate as a raw number.

Overall, Chimera looks like around a 3-4 GVT player. With 6 goals being a win, and one win being worth about $3 M on the open market, that would make Chimera worth about $1.5 to $2 M. He’s going to be paid $1.875 M both this season and next, so his contract looks just about on the button. One could theoretically take into account the amount by which acquiring Chimera increased the Capitals’ chances of making the playoffs (where is certainly worth something), but I think the effect would be negligible.

Clark wasn’t expected to add much on offense – VUKOTA projected him at just 0.1 OGVT – but it seems he’s done even less than that.

Plus/Minus: -4
Defensive Goals Versus Threshold: -0.8

He was projected to have a +0.6 DGVT this season.

Overall, the 33 year-old isn’t a major contributor to the team. He makes $2.63 M this season and $2.63 M more next season before his contract is up, so in some respects it’s a plus just to get that off the books.

The guy isn’t exactly a scoring defenseman. He had just 3 goals and 11 assits last season, and is likely around zero with the OGVT in the near future.

Plus/Minus: 0
Defensive Goals Versus Threshold: -1.0

VUKOTA had projected Jurcina to be a +2.9 DGVT player this season, and with numbers this small the precision becomes an issue. Maybe say he’s a +2 DGVT (for a full season) guy going forward.

Overall, Jurcina hasn’t played all that well and despite his size isn’t an impact defenseman. He’s making $1.375 M this season, and will be an unrestricted free agent. At -2 Goals Versus Threshold, Jurcina wouldn’t actually be worth anything. As a 2 GVT player (all on defense), he would be worth about $1 M. Therefore he was just worth his salary at best, and isn’t a loss to the team.

I’d say the Capitals pretty clearly came out ahead here – maybe by $5 M in value (which might not sound like a lot, but could cover most of Semin’s contract extension) – dealing couple of guys who didn’t contribute much and were possibly paid more than they’re worth for a player who will at least add something to the team and might even be a (very) small bargain.
]]>http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2009/12/30/capitals-trade-chris-clark-and-milan-jurcina-for-jason-chimera/feed/2Wednesday Webhits: The Frost King’s Best Links Of The Weekhttp://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2009/12/30/wednesday-webhits-the-frost-kings-best-links-of-the-week-2/
http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2009/12/30/wednesday-webhits-the-frost-kings-best-links-of-the-week-2/#commentsWed, 30 Dec 2009 14:05:01 +0000http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/?p=408Week two of The Frost King’s Webhits – out of 156* – has links looking at how well the Capitals’ goalies perform on the penalty kill, the diversified scoring of Washington’s forwards, which players excelled at scoring in the past decade, whether defense still wins championships, and a discussion about reforming the shootout system. Enjoy!

* My contract apparently goes through the end of time, which latest info says will be December 21st, 2012. Plan to start (and finish) your Christmas shopping a little early that year!

Jose Theodore and Semyon Varlamov are two of the 10 goalies this year with the largest difference between their even strength save percentage and their penalty kill save percentage. Theodore has been worse by 8.8% (.915 to .827), while Varly has been worse by 9.7% (.941 to .844).

The penalty kill save percentage is in a smaller sample size though, and so there isn’t as much reason to worry as you’d think:

“Philadelphia and Washington both have a much better save percentage at even strength than on the penalty kill, which indicates that the teams have struggled on special teams. However, since the goalies have been able to make saves during 5 on 5 it seems likely that their performance will likely improve as well while shorthanded, and that should help the Flyers and Capitals going forward.”

The Capitals actually have 9 forwards scoring at least 1.7 points per 60 minutes, which is tied for the most in the NHL.

“In Washington it could be a case of spreading out their truly elite scorers (Alexander Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Alexander Semin) in such a way that it artificially inflates checking line players like Matt Bradley.”

Not really a surprise, but Ovie’s #1 at 56.1 goals per 82 games. “Backstrom”, who I assume is Washington’s own Nicklas Backstrom, is 6th in assists at 61.4 per 82 games. Going to overall points, Ovechkin drops to 3rd at 106.3 per 82 games, with Sidney Crosby (boo!) on top at 112.3.

“It’s always strange for me to think that Crosby has drawn so much flak in his short career. He’s been a dominant offensive player playing against the other teams’ top lines. His path to the Stanley Cup was two years shorter than Wayne Gretzky’s. He led the league in scoring when he was 19. I suppose things could be worse: he could have *actually* done something wrong!”

Well yeah, Hawerchuk, if you want to be all “objective” about it. But what’s the fun in that?

In the playoffs since 2006, the team with the better regular season winning percentage won 61% of the series.
The team with more goals scored won 62% of the time.
The team with the better win threshold won 63% of the time.
The team with fewer goals allowed won just 45% of the time.
The team with the better regular season save percentage won 42% of the time.

(Thus the title, Why Offence Rules The New NHL)

Because of the way points are awarded for getting to over-time, good defensive teams have a bit of an advantage in the regular season (and so in getting to the playoffs). Once in though, it looks like it comes down to which team has the most fire-power. Considering the Capitals are a near lock to make it to the post-season, their scoring ability might prove a decisive advantage.

Roundtable discussion with everyone mostly in agreement that the way points are awarded now isn’t good:

“Think about it: right now, if the game is tied with three minutes to go, your team has three options: 1) win (worth 2 points); 2) lose (0 points); or 3) tie (worth 1.5 points.) So your incentive to win is +0.5 points, while your disincentive to lose is -1.5 points. When giving up an extra goal is three times as bad as scoring one is good, you’re not going to try to score! Make it three points for a regulation win, and in addition make one more goal equivalent to one more goal against – plus each team will have a shot at a 3rd point. Of course, this would tend to favor good teams and decrease parity, so it’ll never get approved by the league…

Therefore if ANY team were to somehow manage to eliminate regulation scoring altogether, either with a new system or by cooperating with their opponents, they would finish the season with 123 points and a top playoff seed. In essence, the shootout creates a statistical incentive to reduce scoring, especially for the weaker teams. It also creates the illusion of league parity where there is none, often allowing inferior teams to advance to the postseason and denying us more compelling playoff matchups.”

I agree 100%. The system seems blatantly dumb on it’s face to me. Maybe I’d be more in favor of this kind of parity if the Capitals were a mediocre defensively oriented team, but just from a theoretical aspect it should be fixed.

]]>http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2009/12/30/wednesday-webhits-the-frost-kings-best-links-of-the-week-2/feed/0Wednesday Webhits: The Frost King’s Best Links Of The Weekhttp://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2009/12/23/wednesday-webhits-the-frost-kings-best-links-of-the-week/
http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2009/12/23/wednesday-webhits-the-frost-kings-best-links-of-the-week/#commentsWed, 23 Dec 2009 14:20:56 +0000http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/?p=218Daniel Moroz, or The Frost King as some of us know him, will for now on be providing a weekly segment called “Wednesday Webhits” from now until the end of time. Trust me. He’s signed a contract in blood. He can’t get out of it.

This weekly post will deliver powerfully interesting links that will make you laugh, cry and maybe even kiss that dumb brain goodbye.

This week learn about ties, an awesomely great fighter, why EA Sports hates the Capitals and how Jose Theodore’s current flashy statistics might be a little misleading… Take it away Daniel!

“Whether any team will admit it, they’ve started to take advantage of the extra points available to them if they play for the tie.”

Given the way the rules are set up regarding points, a cost-benefit analysis makes it pretty clear that it’s better to play it safe an assure yourself of at least one point than to take any risks late in a tie game.

I like the idea to change things to: 3 points for a win in regulation, 2 in OT, and 1 for an OTL. 0 points for losing in regulation.

If you’re going to fight, you might as well be good at it. You know; using both hands and throwing combinations, actually defending yourself, etc. I think Anderson Silva could learn to skate a little bit, and boy would he make a good enforcer.

“A great goalie playing shorthanded is much more likely to give up a goal than a mediocre goalie playing with five skaters on each side.”

Jose Theodore is near the top of the list when it comes to facing the fewest percentage of his shots on the penalty kill. The Caps have been very good at avoiding shots while down 4-on-3 or 5-on-3. I guess that means Theodore hasn’t even been quite as “good” as his straight save percentage has looked..

If the Caps and the Pens met in the playoffs with the teams largely as-is, Pittsburgh would be predicted to win about 55% of the time.

“Both the Penguins and Capitals are known for their superstar-driven offenses, puck-moving defensemen and entertaining style. The Penguins are better at even-strength while the Capitals are better with the man advantage. The big difference will be in nets, where Fleury should be able to edge out Varlamov as he did last spring.”

]]>http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2009/12/23/wednesday-webhits-the-frost-kings-best-links-of-the-week/feed/4Dan’s Take: What Should the Capitals Do With Alex Semin?http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2009/12/21/dans-take-what-should-the-capitals-do-with-alex-semin/
http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2009/12/21/dans-take-what-should-the-capitals-do-with-alex-semin/#commentsTue, 22 Dec 2009 02:59:14 +0000http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/?p=155

Before I jump into the fray, there are a few things I wanted to note upfront:

(1) I don’t have any experience writing about hockey.

(2) And I’m coming at this from the perspective of a baseball analyst, so that’s where my base is. I know baseball and hockey are very different sports – especially since in hockey there is much more interaction between players and a team can be more (or less) than the sum of its parts.

(3) There will be cold, heartless calculations done. I don’t care a lick about the players (in this context). To me they’re just assets, like houses. You can have a really nice house – worth $10 M – but if the mortgage on it is for $15 M then it’s not actually very good for you. Hockey is a business, so there are revenues and costs (like players). If a player is worth $5 M but is paid $6 M, then that’s a bad deal for the team. If he’s paid $4 M, then the team has found $1 M in excess value.

(4) There will be numbers, many of which I make assumptions about and do hand-wavy things with. Precision would be great, but I don’t quite have the tools or the available data at my disposal to do things completely accurately.

Alrighty then. So, what should the Capitals do about Alexander Semin? I’m going to go through each option to the best of my ability, to see which branch bears the best fruit.

Option 1 – Keep Semin for the rest of the year and then let him walk.

How much is this worth to the Capitals?

Well we know that Semin is being paid $4.6 M this year and will be a restricted free agent after the season. I don’t know how much he’s worth as a player, but I can make an educated guess.

Based on this analysis, it looks like forwards make about $5 M per point per game (it’s for a pair of forwards, but a worthwhile starting point). Semin is at .86 pt/g career, 1.3 pt/g last year, and .94 p/g this year. Call it 1 pt/g, and you’ve got $5 M.

More substantially, using their VUKOTA projection system, Puck Prospectus had Semin as being worth 15.4 Goals Versus Threshold (goals above what a replacement level player would produce) in their pre-season projections – which was third on the team to Ovie (27.6) and Backstrom (17.4). With 6 goals being approximately equal to one win, and one win being worth about $2 M, Semin would be worth $5.13 M (how convenient). He was at 22.3 GVT last year though, which would be $7.43 M. If you split the difference to about $6 M, then that means Semin is “underpaid” (relative to his assumed free market value) by about $1.4 M this season. That is value that is accrued to the team. Prorating it going forward, and it’s about $1 M.

Then you need to account for – beyond his base production – how much he’d help the Capitals’ chances of getting to the playoffs this year and how much that’s worth.

Estimates for playoff revenue I’ve seen indicate about $1 M per game a team plays. Last year the average team playoff team played in a little over 10 games, so we could estimate that making the playoffs is worth about $10 M. Maybe tack on another $5 M for increased revenues due to a boost in attendance the following year(s), and an estimated average playoff bonus comes in at around $15 M. (This is about half of what it is in baseball, which makes some really loose intuitive sense as baseball teams have yearly revenues that are about double hockey teams’. Very loose sense.)

If we say that keeping Semin on the team increases the Capitals’ chances of making the playoffs (above what his replacement would do) by about 2% then he’s worth an additional $0.3 M to the team this year ($15 M times 2%).

The final piece to this puzzle is the compensation the Capitals would get when another team signed Semin. As a player with an assumed value of $5+ M, Washington should get back a first-round draft-pick, a second-round pick, and a third-round pick. To properly value the picks we need to know what kind of players they translate into. Based on this analysis, you’re getting – on average – an OK NHL player, a very good minor leaguer, and an OK minor leaguer (who maybe gets a shot). I don’t really know what that “means”, but I’ll assign values to them (production minus costs) of $1 M, $0.25 M, and $0 M respectively (hand waving is fun!). That’s total compensation of $1.25 M.

Add it all up, and the Capitals – who’ll be keeping Semin through the rest of the year and then letting him walk – are coming out ahead by about $2.55 M.

Option 2 – Keep Semin for the rest of the year and then sign him.

Most of the work for this one has already been down (everything through the compensation). Since Semin is a restricted free agent, one might expect the Capitals to be able to sign him cheaper than his free market value (maybe $6.25 M going forward). If they give him a 4 year, $24 M contract ($6 M a year) then they come out ahead by $1 M.

I have the excess value from signing Semin as about equal to the draft-pick compensation value for losing him, which would make sense if the system works properly.

There is some potential opportunity cost associated with signing him since the team might not be able to make other additions due to the salary cap, but I don’t consider that a big issue. The reason is, it doesn’t really matter where your value comes from (presuming you count it correctly). We’re trying to maximize team wins with a given amount of money, so if the same dollars would need to be spent on a free agent anyway it’s pretty equivalent (not taking into account what holes the team has). If Semin makes the team 2.5 wins better a season (costing $5 M), then losing Semin and using that $5 M to upgrade at 2 other spots by 1.25 wins each still leaves the team at +2.5 win. Not perfect of course, but the general idea shouldn’t be too far off.

So the total excess value to the team is once again $2.6 M. The difference between letting him walk and signing him depends largely on if he would accept a below market rate (and I think he might potentially be a little overpriced), and if that money could instead be used on even more undervalued assets and if the Capitals have places where they can improve easily (ie, big holes). I’d say they probably do, but what do I know?

Option 3 – Trade Semin at the trade deadline

Since Semin’s value is around $2.6 M, the team would need to receive more than that in a trade to make it worthwhile. They would take a slight hit to their playoff odds this year, but if they could get a couple quality players at positions of need who are still young and cheap, then I would say to go for it. If the general consensus opinion of Semin’s abilities is actually higher than his expected production, then you cash in that overvalued asset if you can.

Now if you assume that all NHL actors (as they say in economics) are rational and have perfect information and all that (ha!), then it would follow that Semin’s contract would exactly equal his value and what he would bring over in a trade would exactly equal to his value, and so the correct thing to do would be to keep him for the year and then let him walk (since that’s the only thing that would provide a surplus to the team).

In the real world, you keep him/trade him based on his specific contract demands and exactly what kind of package you could get back in a trade. I’ll leave that speculation as an exercise to the reader.

Daniel is a writer for the highly informative Fanball Sponsored Orioles Blog Camden Crazies, which you can view here. If you would like to comment on his statistics or offer any creative criticism, please comment below or email us here.